Schadenfreude/Epicaricacy...

The horror is not in the red eyes glowing
or the clatter of hooves chasing after you
Even as your flesh is torn away from the bone
it isn't the floods of lost blood and found pain
that fills your mind with overwhelming trepidation
nor the reactions of demons as devils mutilate you

It's not the sight of your blood
bringing sinister smiles
as the sound of your screams
muse horn-flanked ears
When your trembling hands
are sliced by sharpened sickles
and the smell of your fear
wafts into sneering noses
it's not how your bitter tears
cause fanged mouths to salivate
that brings you pure terror

Nothing is as flagitously grievous
as the schadenfreude of men
and the endemic prevalence
of this epicaricacy they posses

But even this isn't the true extent of it
When you see your own eyes glowing
in some reflection as you thrash defensively
you witness something far more sinister
without seeing this terror for what it is

The true horror of this world
isn't that such epicaricacy
is more than universal,
more than powerful,
more than justifiable
It's that in every human heart
that can be honestly read
this schadenfreude is so elating

Survival reaffirms the desire to live
or condemns life to the death it creates
In treacherous beings the schadenfreude kills
not by way of the demise of victims it beholds
but by the capacity for greater joys
that it strangles dead behind eyes of epicaricacy

In the noblest of men
there is no lack of schadenfreude
but rather a greater capacity for things
that foster more virtuous exaltations of life
The venerable man's epicaricacy must not dwell
merely in the destruction of that which is rightly evil
but must become calibrated by delight in the glory it preserves
It is not wicked to delight in the victories over opposing forces
nor is it righteous to condemn the hearts of embattled soldiers
For in some manner all living things kill to preserve life
Even vegetarian practices prey on some vitality
By virtue of living souls epicaricacy is wielded
not as an appetite for mutilated carcasses
but as a tempered shield of reverence
that protects a nobleman's heart
from the swords of beasts
as desperate men

Life cannot me mourned by the dead
and death must not be glorified by the living
But life and death are never so removed
that they are not somehow entangled
For even those dead and buried
have previously known living
and all the fortunately alive
will one day be so dead
As life is ever fleeting
epicaricacy remains
however dead